What does Google say about SEO? /
The Crawl & Indexing category compiles all official Google statements regarding how Googlebot discovers, crawls, and indexes web pages. These fundamental processes determine which pages from your website will be included in Google's index and potentially appear in search results. This section addresses critical technical mechanisms: crawl budget management to optimize allocated resources, strategic implementation of robots.txt files to control content access, noindex directives for page exclusion, XML sitemap configuration to enhance discoverability, along with JavaScript rendering challenges and canonical URL implementation. Google's official positions on these topics are essential for SEO professionals as they help avoid technical blocking issues, accelerate new content indexation, and prevent unintentional deindexing. Understanding Google's crawling and indexing processes forms the foundation of any effective search engine optimization strategy, directly impacting organic visibility and SERP performance. Whether troubleshooting indexation problems, optimizing crawl efficiency for large websites, or ensuring proper URL canonicalization, these official guidelines provide authoritative answers to complex technical SEO questions that shape modern web presence and discoverability.
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★★★ Should you really stop placing category pages in noindex?
Google advises against using the noindex tag on category, author, or list pages (for example, in WordPress). Allowing Google to crawl and index all pages helps the algorithm better understand the site...
Anonyme (金谷武明) Jun 04, 2020
★★★ Is it true that mobile accordion hidden content is indexed as visible content?
With Mobile-First Indexing, hidden content within mobile accordions is indeed recognized by Google. The handling of accordion content on PC no longer impacts indexing as Google now crawls with the mob...
金谷武明 Jun 04, 2020
★★★ Is it really necessary to combine both 301 redirections AND canonical tags for an HTTPS migration?
During an HTTP to HTTPS migration, it is essential to implement both 301 redirections AND canonical tags pointing to HTTPS to clearly indicate to Google which version is canonical....
金谷武明 Jun 04, 2020
★★ Does the number of JavaScript files really slow down Google indexing?
Google renders all JavaScript files on a page in a single rendering pass, not file by file. The number of JS files does not proportionally increase the rendering delay in the indexing process....
金谷武明 Jun 04, 2020
★★ Does the HTTP header rel=canonical really work to manage duplicate content?
The rel=canonical attribute specified via the HTTP header is still recognized and effective. Google recommends using it if pages (like PDFs) are duplicated across multiple domains (separate PC and mob...
Anonyme (金谷武明) Jun 04, 2020
★★★ Why doesn't Google canonicalize URLs with fragments in sitelinks and rich results?
Google normally canonicalizes URLs with fragments (#) in standard search results, but not in sitelinks or rich results (like FAQs). In these cases, the URL with the fragment is recorded as it is in th...
Anonyme (金谷武明) Jun 04, 2020
★★★ Should you really index all category pages to optimize your crawl budget?
Google does not recommend using noindex on category or listing pages to optimize crawl. Google prefers to crawl and index all pages to understand the site structure and display the most relevant pages...
金谷武明 Jun 04, 2020
★★★ Can you really display different content on mobile and desktop without facing penalties?
Google indexes the mobile version of the content. Displaying slightly different content between mobile and desktop is acceptable, unless it is malicious cloaking (e.g., comics on mobile, adult content...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★★ Is it really necessary to use noindex to hide your low-traffic local pages?
For a news site, having 90% of articles that generate little organic traffic is normal. These local or ephemeral articles are not low quality, just less popular. Noindex is only useful if the content ...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★ Why doesn't your homepage always show up first in a site: query?
For site: queries, Google has no defined order for displaying results. It's common but not guaranteed to see the homepage first. Its absence does not indicate a problem if the page normally ranks for ...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★ How do you set up hreflang and x-default for geographic 301 redirects without losing indexing?
Redirecting users from one country to a different domain (with a canonical link to the main domain) is possible. Using hreflang with x-default for the redirect page helps Google understand the structu...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★ Is it really necessary to block social sharing URLs that generate 500 errors?
500 errors on internal URLs redirecting to external social networks do not pose a problem for Google. These URLs can be blocked by robots.txt to prevent their appearance in Search Console crawl errors...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★★ Why does Google sometimes ignore your rel=canonical tag?
Google does not guarantee indexing the URL indicated by rel=canonical. Canonicalization combines multiple signals: redirects, rel canonical, internal and external links, sitemaps, and other factors. I...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★★ Is geographic cloaking really allowed by Google?
Serving different content by country is not cloaking if all users in a given country (including Googlebot crawling from the USA) see the same version. Cloaking only refers to the act of serving specif...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★ Does JavaScript server-side rendering hide invisible SEO errors from users?
JavaScript server-side rendering (SSR) produces static HTML similar to WordPress, but if SSR is configured specifically for Google, numerous errors can occur that are invisible to normal users. Compar...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★ Will Google introduce accelerated validation for your content overhauls in Search Console?
Google is considering extending the validation process for fixes in Search Console (currently limited to technical issues and structured data) to content overhauls. This would trigger expedited re-cra...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★★ Does temporary removal in Search Console really block PageRank?
Temporary removal in Search Console only hides the page from search results, without altering its indexing. Google continues to crawl, index, and pass PageRank through the links on this page. The remo...
John Mueller May 29, 2020
★★★ Can Google really ignore part of your site without warning?
Google does not guarantee that it will crawl and index all pages of a site, nor the speed at which this will happen. Indexing does not mean that the page will be visible or useful in the results. Focu...
Martin Splitt May 27, 2020
★★★ Do JavaScript links really need to be <a> elements with href to be crawled?
For Google to follow links generated by JavaScript, they must be genuine <a> elements with a valid href attribute. Buttons, divs, spans with onclick, or <a> tags without href or with empty href are no...
Martin Splitt May 27, 2020
★★★ Is it really true that JavaScript-rendered content can be indexed by Google without any friction?
If the content appears in the 'Rendered HTML' tab of testing tools (Mobile-Friendly Test, Rich Results Test, URL Inspection Tool), it is correctly indexable by Google, even if it is not in the origina...
Martin Splitt May 27, 2020
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